Terrorist’s Best Defense

If youâ€™re a Cuban-American caught redhanded in illegal activities, thereâ€™s a great defense these days. Just claim that youâ€™re trying to kill Fidel Castro or overthrow the Cuban government. Proclaim that youâ€™re just loyally carrying out the policy that Washington has pursued ever since the Cuban Revolution. You might even threaten to subpoena government documents and officials. Or you could threaten to start revealing secrets about the governmentâ€™s terrorist activities.

Meanwhile, on September 12, 1998, less than three weeks after the indictment of the seven terrorists, the FBI arrested a group of Cubans who were in Miami to collect information about precisely this kind of terrorist plot.

The most notorious terrorist in the Western Hemisphere, Luis Posada Carriles, currently â€œin detentionâ€ in El Paso, Texas, is also wondering why heâ€™s in trouble. Posada definitely has a bona fide defense for carrying out terrorist acts as an agent of the U.S. government, and Washington is concerned about what Posada might disclose.

Thus he is not charged with any of his terrorist crimes even though he is currently wanted in Venezuela on charges of blowing up a Cuban civilian jetliner, killing all 73 people aboard. He is not charged with bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed an Italian businessman and wounded several other people even though he bragged to New York Times reporters that he was the mastermind of that bombing campaign (see front-page stories July 12 and July 13, 1998). Posada became a CIA agent in 1960. He kills with impunity because, as he told those reporters, he has worked closely with both the CIA and the FBI. He said, â€œThe CIA taught us everythingâ€”everythingâ€¦.They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of sabotage.â€ But the only charge against him in Texas is for entering this country without inspection, a minor charge for which he was detained last year.